1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to obtaining an entitled price in an electronic transaction. More particularly, the present invention relates to obtaining an entitled price in a public electronic environment from a private electronic environment.
2. Background Information
Electronic transactions involving the purchase of various goods and services have steadily increased with the popularity and use of public electronic environments, such as, for example, global computer networks (e.g., the INTERNET). Among the biggest participants in such electronic transactions are large businesses that typically make volume purchases. These types of companies tend to negotiate price discounts with one or more sellers of goods they need. Such negotiated prices are referred to herein as the “entitled price,” which is the price a buyer is entitled to for a given item based on an entitlement, such as, for example, a contract with the seller or a promotional offer from the seller (e.g., a coupon) or a program with a business partner of the seller (e.g., “point” programs similar to airline mileage programs).
Due to the number of and differences among the various entitlements for various customers of a given seller, the calculation of an entitled price is no trivial matter for many sellers. In the past, sellers have been unable to provide an entitled price in response to a price inquiry from a potential buyer in an electronic purchasing environment while the potential buyer waits, for example, an inquiry to a commerce site on a global computer network. The information needed to calculate the entitled price, as well as things such as taxes and shipping costs, typically resides in a private electronic environment, such as, for example, a secure computer or computer network housing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application. ERP applications are large, expensive and complex computer programs that track massive volumes of data (e.g., base prices, customers, contracts, price rules, tax conditions, etc.), and calculate, among other things, an entitled price. Due to the sensitive nature of such information, both for the buyer and the seller, ERP applications have not been made accessible from public electronic environments for security reasons.
It has been suggested that commerce sites simply develop their own pricing engines to provide an entitled price. However, since the key data resides with the ERP application, such pricing engines require that the data be kept current in more than one location. Such a situation could result in a price provided to the buyer that does not equal the price ultimately charged, for example, if a base price update has not yet been made for the pricing engine. Worse, some commerce sites will actually go offline to calculate the entitled price and send it back to buyer, making it appear to the buyer to be automatically generated. This practice, known as “rip and read” can also lead to inaccuracies, due to time constraints and human error. Such confusion causes various problems for the buyer, not the least of which is budgeting, and serves only to reduce the credibility of the seller.
Thus, a need exists for a way to automatically provide an accurate entitled price in an electronic transaction.